A Nobelist Has an Unfamiliar Role in Protests

Saturday

Jan 29, 2011 at 5:09 AM

A police confrontation is the latest turn in Mohamed ElBaradei’s unexpected second career in Egypt’s politics.

DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

CAIRO — Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work to promote nuclear nonproliferation, never made a very likely revolutionary leader. But there he was Friday, in a soft leather jacket and clip-on sunglasses, standing toe-to-toe with a line of hundreds of riot police several blocks long.

At his back were thousands who had risen from their Friday prayers at a mosque near Cairo chanting for an end to the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak. Some said they had come to this mosque especially because they expected to find Dr. ElBaradei, who has become, partly by his own design, partly by default, the Mubarak government’s best-known critic.

“Peacefully, peacefully,” the protesters chanted as they jostled against the police shields. Then came a hail of baton blows on the crowd around Dr. ElBaradei, who stood his ground. Then came a blast of a water cannon, which drenched him along with the crowd. And only when the police escalated to tear gas to clear the streets did Dr. ElBaradei, 68, finally retreat into the relative security of the mosque to dry off and wash the gas residue from his face and eyes. By Friday night, there were numerous reports that Dr. ElBaradei’s appearance at the front lines was too much for the government, and that the Egyptian police had warned him to stay in his home, effectively placing him under house arrest.

But the afternoon confrontation — a United Nations bureaucrat as the forward face of an angry crowd — is the latest turn in Dr. ElBaradei’s unexpected second career in Egyptian politics.

When he made his debut last February he was welcomed by a small coterie of supporters as a savior offering an alternative to Mr. Mubarak’s rule. But others in the opposition expressed disappointment, even derision, when Dr. ElBaradei continued to spend more time traveling than with his Egyptian supporters, preferring to exhort the masses toward democracy through Facebook, Twitter and Al Jazeera. Even at the height of the tumult on Friday, as he slipped back into the mosque, a few in the crowd outside even took up a chant of “1, 2, ElBaradei, where are you?”

But others taking refuge inside the mosque said they felt gratified that Dr. ElBaradei, the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who flew back Thursday from his other home in Vienna, had at last put himself on the line, trying to hold up his prestige as a shield for the crowd. And he seemed stunned at the image of a Nobel peace laureate hosed down by baton-wielding riot police officers.

“This is the work of a barbaric regime that is in my view doomed,” he said. “They are completely desperate. We have been walking in a peaceful demonstration. This is our basic right. And I hope the pictures will be everywhere to see how barbaric, how petrified, how dictatorial is this regime.”

“Make no mistake,” he added, sounding more and more the revolutionary, “this kind of violence will be completely counterproductive. It will backfire in their face, if not today then tomorrow.”

He added, “What they have done today is they have closed the door for a peaceful transition, they have told the Egyptian people that they have to revolt.”

Since his arrival in February, Dr. ElBaradei has said he would be a candidate for the presidency but only if the Constitution were revised to allow for a free and fair election. With Mr. Mubarak nearing his 82nd birthday and another election this year, Dr. ElBaradei has worked to bring together liberal intellectuals and the outlawed Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Dr. ElBaradei, whose doctorate, from New York University, is in international law, directed much of his anger at the West, faulting the United States and others for what he described as a hesitant response to a popular uprising demanding freedom, human rights and the rule of law.

“If the international community is not speaking now, then when?” he asked. “If they continue to be complacent, if they continue to support this barbaric regime, they should not be surprised that they have zero credibility in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world.”